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The United Soccer League and FC Dallas announced today that FC Dallas will be the 10th and final founding member of the inaugural 2019 season of USL League One. The FC Dallas USL franchise will play the majority of their home games at Toyota Stadium but could potentially be playing a handful of games at another location within the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

Close followers of FC Dallas will have known this franchise was coming since we first broke the story in June. But this is the first official announcement of the USL team for FC Dallas.

"We are delighted to have FC Dallas join the USL," said USL CEO Alec Papadakis. "For decades, the Hunt family has been at the forefront of growing the game in the United States, and now, they are embracing a tremendous opportunity to strengthen their club and the Dallas-Fort Worth region by launching a team in USL League One."

FC Dallas says they will announce the additional location as well as the name, head coach and logo of its League One team later this year.

"USL League One offers an outstanding opportunity for our younger players to compete against quality opponents," said FC Dallas President Dan Hunt. "Having a second professional team will allow us to create a culture throughout the organization that will help us succeed at every level."

USL League One

USL League One was originally called USL Division III, representing its position as the third tier of the professional soccer pyramid in the United States. Major League Soccer sits atop the US structure at the division 1 level, just as the Premier League does in England or La Liga in Spain.

USL/USL

United Soccer League

The history of the USL and the modern NASL has been fluid at best, but USL has been in existence as either the Division II or III of soccer in the US since 2005. With the demise of the NASL, USL has cemented themselves as the Division II league through its partnership with MLS. Now USL is launching a Division III level and rebranding it's two leagues to the USL Championship (Division II) and USL League One (Division III).

USL also runs a sanctioned semi-pro league which features college kids and local semi-pro players. This league used to be called the USL Premier Development League (PDL) but is rebranding to USL League Two. The National Premier Soccer League, or NPSL, also runs at the same sanctioning level unofficially called Division IV.

The USL League One regular season is scheduled to begin in 2019 on the weekend of March 29-31 and conclude on the weekend of Oct. 4-6. The 2019 USL League One Playoffs will consist of four teams and begin the weekend of Oct. 11-13. The final match of the postseason will take place from Oct. 17-21.

Our Take

This is a fantastic move as FC Dallas desperately needed a bridge between the Academy and the MLS side. There just isn't enough room and playing time on the MLS team for all the amazing young talent coming out of the FC Dallas Academy.

FC Dallas' new USL team will train and play most games at Toyota Stadium alongside the senior MLS side. I expect the team to be coached by someone already on the FC Dallas staff, like current Academy director Luchi Gonzalez perhaps.

There was a fair amount of discussion internally at FC Dallas as to whether the club should join USL League One (D3) or the USL Championship (D2). MLS has left this decision up to the clubs as MLS teams are split on which league they want to play in.

Some MLS teams and certain staff of FC Dallas want to play in the USL Championship as the level of play is higher. Other MLS sides and others inside FC Dallas, including ownership which is what matters, want to play in League One primarily due to the lower operating costs. For example, the USL Championship expansion fee is reportedly rising to $7 million for 2019 while the initial USL League One expansion fee is only $500k.

I would, of course, prefer the Little Huntsmen play in the Championship for the higher level of play, but that's easy for me to say as it's not my money.

FC Dallas/USL

USL League One and FC Dallas

One important thing to understand from a fan perspective, this FC Dallas USL side isn't going to be about winning games. Within the context of any single game, yes, they will attempt to win. But the USL League One FCD team will consist of only a few players signed directly to USL contracts, most of their players will be Homegrowns or bottom of the roster players loaned from the MLS squad to the USL team. Academy players (mostly U19s) who will play up with the USL side.

Any given game day you will see anywhere from a couple teenagers to maybe even an entire team of them. In fact, this USL side will cause a ripple effect through the FC Dallas Academy as a chunk of the U19 team will move up to the USL side. Rather than replace those players with kids from the U19 Premier team, FC Dallas will promote more players from the U17s to the U19s, and so on down the line.

FC Dallas will in effect have teams that are in the majority playing a whole bracket up all the way down the Academy. The U19 team will mostly be U17s, the U17 team will mostly be U15s, etc. This will be wonderful for the development of individual players as you want them challenged at the highest level possible, but it will hurt FCD's Academy results.

Results in the Academy, and with the new USL team, aren't really the point though. The only team where the results matter is the MLS side. Everything else is about creating the best players to feed into the MLS side as possible.